The Planet Is.

The planet is:


many stories
always changing
always tired
losing things
forgetting things
reading
buying things
gone on Saturdays
joining groups
sick
taking on more outside responsibilities
leaving more things undone
setting goals
wanting her way
caring
not caring
searching for peace
feeling unappreciated
repeating things
finishing sentences
trying to belong
never satisfied
expecting different results
hiding things
not speaking
cooking
warm chattering
going to therapy
spinning out of control
spinning into inaction
residing resplendent in squalor
not knowing where to start


What is the planet doing?

If I thought I knew I know I was wrong.


Which of course begs the question. What the hell was I doing. Which is probably the only question any of us can answer with any authority at all. The truly sad thing is that I would probably get the answer wrong. Sadder still is most of us would.

But I can tell you what I thought I was doing even if it was no where near good enough for the Planet.

earning a living
helping with the satellites
keeping the household books
doing the laundry
doing yard work
paying the bills
trying to make income faster than the planets outflow
thanking genuinely for ever kindness showed
being grateful
being a loving husband
being a responsible father

Gosh, I am so special. At least these were the things I thought I was doing. Was I succeeding. The answer to that becomes apparent as the journey on the South Shore Line continues. All answers become self evident upon closer examination. The real trick is to stop looking with our heads and start to see with our hearts. Now that the panic attacks have ceased it is much easier to do.

Caring for the Planet was indeed a full time job. Where as I come from a long line of stoics, there never seemed a time when the Planet wasn't tired, in pain , just plain tuckered out. I tried to understand incapacitating maladies that have nightly occurrences, but the stoic in me is ever skeptical. Being a couple that had dutifully read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" while in marriage counselling, I tried very hard to go against my nature and try not to fix things. So what's the natural response. I guess I chose to listen when verbalization of issues out of my control were offered and then do nothing. Maybe that wasn't the right response.

Oopsy.